I was sitting on the floor and watching cricket. Kiddo (neighbors fiesty toddler) knocked on the door and walked in and gave one look at tv and walked over to bureau and started fiddling with the frame that was holding an attached mirror
She wanted snack so my mom went to whiff up some snack. I continued to watch cricket but kept an eye on her just from corner of my eye without moving my head from the direction of TV
She continued to fiddle and finally showed some sign of triumph and turned and started moving her hand towards her mouth
What happened next was exactly like a replay of a ball catch by a fielder or run out by wicket keeper
I saw from the corner of my eye, that she was holding a coin in her hand – all of this happened in few seconds but played out in weird slow motion like a replay scene – and she was moving her hand towards her mouth
I screamed ‘noooooo’ and moved exactly like a fielder and since I had to be fast, I just jumped from my spot where I was sitting on the floor and fell sideways but landed close to her hand and quickly grabbed her hand, while lying sideways on the floor very uncomfortably.
Obviously she got annoyed and kept pulling her hand and kept trying to free it from me
I was still lying on the floor barely supporting myself from falling by using one elbow to support myself while the other hand was struggling to hold her hand away from the mouth
She stopped trying to free her hand and quickly assessed the situation and started slapping my face with her other hand – ouch – such sharp and tiny slaps, especially at such a disadvantaged vantage point.
Now I had to crawl myself awkwardly- remember one hand still holding her coin-holding-fingers – and the other hand now trying to deflect her slaps and finally I crawled up enough to put myself in a sitting position and had better leverage to stop her hands from slapping me
Another second of assessment from her and now her head flung at me – again all this in matter of seconds- I hastily group both her hands into my left hand and blocked her head with my right – and said – ‘huh , finally gotcha’ with a look of triumph – which – you should have guessed by now – was very short lived
Because, now her little legs were flailing – it took me few seconds to realize she was trying to kick me – so that I will be forced to let her go – but she had not started walking yet, so it just resulting in her bumbling like a jelly with a fierce look on her face
This was just too much for me to bear and I broke into a huge laughter – while calling for help because I was so tickled and laughing so much that it was getting super hard to hold her hand from her mouth – ‘help help, sniff sniff – ha ha,- hee hee – help’ – and she was still using every limb in her tiny self to attack me and free her hand
Finally folks came in and totally confused and absolutely no clue on what was happening, separated us and fought with her – as she was still performing martial arts – to free the coin and took the coin away.
And that is how I got my first punch from a toddler (ahem, I mean after I became an adult.) And since then I have a high suspicion that all the martial arts would have been created/inspired by simply spending time with toddlers or fighting off dangerous items from their hands.
PS:
- Dedicated to all girl moms who have a fiesty and mischievous toddler and breaks gender stereotypes.
- I am totally fine, did not need medical intervention from that ordeal 😀